Using the ChangeNTLM and SetNTLM commands in Mimikatz, attackers can manipulate user passwords and escalate their privileges in Active Directory. Let’s take a look at these commands and what they do.

2022 began with successful ransomware attacks against global IT and digital transformation providers, no thanks to the notorious LAPSUS$ ransomware gang. Often, any discussion about ransomware impact has mostly centered on affected organizations. Rightly so, as victimized organizations usually suffer significant disruption to their operations. In 2021, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation received 3,729 complaints identified as ransomware.

LockBit (a.k.a. ABCD) emerged in September 2019 and became one of the most relevant RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) groups among others like REvil, BlackMatter, Night Sky, Maze, Conti and Netwalker. The group targets many organizations around the world with a double-extortion scheme, where the attackers steal sensitive data and threaten to leak everything if the ransom is not paid.

‍The NSO Group, the vendor behind Pegasus, is struggling financially, and to solve their money problems, the company is now considering selling their surveillanceware to governments with poor human rights records.

People have become the primary attack vector for cyber attackers around the world. As the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2022 indicates, it is humans rather than technology that now represent the greatest risk to organizations. According to the SANS 2022 Security Awareness Report, the top three security risks that security professionals are concerned about are phishing, business email compromise (BEC) and ransomware, all closely related to human behavior.

Lockbit3.0 is the number one ransomware group in the ransomware industry. The group’s operations are so vast and powerful, that we have witnessed weeks where Lockbit’s victim count was more than all other ransomware families altogether. Ever since Conti’s leaks, Lockbit overtook the ransomware throne without any intention of going down anytime soon.

The State of Ransomware in Government 2021 report finds that government agencies are facing a ransomware “national emergency.” Local governments in particular face higher rates of encryption during cyber attacks due to constrained budgets and organizational pressure to divert funds away from cybersecurity, leaving gaps in their data protection.

Meet Shathak – a threat group tied to malware used in the Russian-speaking underground targeting enterprises across different sectors in the Americas, Europe and Asia

Ransomware and other malicious threats have become commonplace around the globe. But the reality is, whether it be encrypted records, stolen email credentials, or exfiltrated financial statements, these incidents generally involve a limited number of individuals or groups. Before your feathers are completely ruffled, understand that by no means am I minimizing the impact cybercriminals can have on a business. But have you considered attacks of greater scale? Perhaps those that affect the populus?

TeamTNT is a prevalent threat actor who has been targeting cloud and virtual environments such as Kubernetes and Docker since at least late 2019. This threat actor is financially motivated, focusing their efforts on stealing credentials and cryptomining. In 2020, we analyzed their use of Weave Scope on an unsecured Docker API endpoint exposed to the internet. In December 2021, we attributed an attack to TeamTNT in which they targeted a vulnerable WordPress pod to steal AWS credentials.